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Older AOI Inspection Systems

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Is there anything to watch out for when purchasing older AOI... - Oct 06, 2018 by Reckless  

... - Oct 16, 2018 by Reckless  

#81170

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 6 October, 2018

Is there anything to watch out for when purchasing older AOI systems other than OS/Software? Specifically I am looking at older Mirtec/Marantz benchtop style units. I figure it's a good way to get my feet wet before going to a full inline system.

We don't have big needs for AOI as our circuits are pretty simple and we do long runs of same parts for days.

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#81172

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 7 October, 2018

Hello Reckless,

My name is Brian D'Amico. I am the president of MIRTEC's USA Division.

First of all I would check with the AOI vendor regarding any refurbished equipment they may have on hand. We at MIRTEC typically have some vintage desktop equipment in inventory. These systems are fully refurbished and come with the latest software as well as warranty and training.

Please feel free to contact us, we are here to help: MIRTEC (203) 881-5559. http://www.mirtecusa.com.

If you will be buying from a used equipment broker, my advise would be to always check with the manufacturer before buying any piece of used equipment as the manufacturer will have access to all pertinent information regarding any second ownership fees as well as the service history of the equipment by serial number. I would also highly recommend seeing the equipment firsthand.

Best of luck with your purchase!

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#81173

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 7 October, 2018

Thank you for responding. Is everything still linux based? I was weirded out at first with Marantz being apple based but on videos the apple graphics look very vibrant and appealing, especially when looking at super fine detail being magnified.

The SMTA show is next week in chicago, I will stop by your booth.

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#81175

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 8 October, 2018

Hi Reckless, PM me and I'll send you the contact details from where we buy our Mirtecs, the pricing and machines are very good.

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#81186

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 10 October, 2018

One of the reasons I am looking at older AOI inspection systems is I suspect they are more primitive and easier to use. No instruction manuals needed.

I watch this video and see how easy it is to use/program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BZlb1ragSQ

My fear with newer AOI systems is that they overengineered, too many unnecessary features, ridicously cumbersome, require extensive training and life long support. Can anyone comment on their experience?

If someone wants an ultra simple and easy to implement solution that doesn't require much effort- does such a thing exist on the market?

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#81190

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 10 October, 2018

Hello Reckless,

No all of our MIRTEC systems are Windows based. I look forward to meeting you in Chicago.

Please provide your contact information to schedule a demonstration. My full contact informtion is available on our website: http://www.mirtecusa.com

We look forward to seeing you soon!

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#81195

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 10 October, 2018

We have 2 Mirtec AOI's in our plant and can say they are very easy to use and are work horses. Great machines for the price.

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#81204

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 11 October, 2018

How much do they run?

Older Marantz 22X systems are running ~$1000 which is why I was thinking about them.

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#81206

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 11 October, 2018

I would suggest spending the extra money and getting the Mirtec. Simple to program, great support and reliable.

We run 2 of these machines (MV3-L) 10 hours a day 6 days a week.

Remember, you get what you pay for. If programmed correctly, the Mirtec will catch between 90-95% of the defects. Only drawback is they're not 3-D and they have a height restriction. These are great machines to get started on.

We are now upgrading to Koh-Young Zenith Lite 3-D machines, but will keep the Mirtecs for batch jobs and through hole components. In the last 15 years these have been running, we only had 3 times one has gone down... One was a broken belt for the Y Axis table, one of our 5-way cameras had an issue that was resolved through Tech Support and had a PC die.

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#81207

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 11 October, 2018

Hello Doug,

Thank you for the reference on our vintage MV-3L systems. It is always a pleasure to receive positive feedback from our valued customers.

I also saw that you were in the market for 3D AOI. Are you familair with our MV-3 OMNI Desktop 3D AOI and MV-6 OMNI In-Line 3D AOI systems?

Please review our system specifications and customer references on our website at http://www.mirtecusa.com and give me a buzz at 203-232-9343. I would welcome an opportunity to show you these award winning products in action.

Thank you once again for your kind words and for your consideration.

Brian D'Amico President MIRTEC USA

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#81210

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 12 October, 2018

We have a pair of old 22XDL's that are just used for heritage boards, and they do a good job. They have 5MP cameras in them same as the MV3L's.

We had MV3Ls and MV5's at a previous place and got similar results.

The key is understanding properly how they work and programming correctly, then interpreting and tuning to get the most out of them.

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#81239

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 15 October, 2018

Reckless,

why would you get desktop machine? AOI machine has two components camera and conveyor. /why would you buy just the camera?

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#81241

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 15 October, 2018

Mostly because its outside the budget currently. We may look at inline in a few months.

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#81242

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 15 October, 2018

Be careful about used AOIs, some of the companies have truly outrageous registration fees (ten, fifteen grand) without which you can't get support or parts.

2d AOI is of pretty limited utility other than detecting a wrongly mounted reel during placement (and even then, of no value for chip components smaller than 0603 because they're not labeled.) 2D AOI will... sometimes... find solder defects and sometimes it won't, unless they're grossly wrong. You're better off spending the same money on solder paste inspection if it is an either/or proposition.

2D with side angled cameras is a very dubious proposition.

Now 3D AOI... that's the absolute bee's knees, but only recently enough that there's going to be limited stuff on the used market.

2D can be useful to verify setups, but you can probably use the NPI software on your pick and place machine to verify placements before you start up the run. Depends on how high mix you are and what your bottlenecks are.

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#81246

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 16 October, 2018

http://www.aoisystems.com/

I was at the SMTA show and saw this company's booth. It looked like a good product at a good price but it doesn't do 3D AOI. The sales person was saying that 3D AOI is only useful in cases where a lead pin is hanging in the air. Our boards have less than 50 SMT components and only 2 through hole which we place post oven. Nothing fine pitch. We do have a QFN that has 32 pins.

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#81248

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 17 October, 2018

That's incorrect. 3D aoi is extremely useful for determining solder flow and slope which a 2D can't do. Yes it's also great for coplanarity, tomb stoning, head and pillow and a multitude of other defects. Most 3d AOI use cad models and height measurement to accomplish these tasks. 2D AOI relies on images and pixel count (grey scale) which does work, but not as well as 3D.

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#81249

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 17 October, 2018

What is slope? Solder flow issues seem unlikely for long runs with few parts. Im focused on my application which I think is simple compared to a contract manufacture.

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#81251

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 17 October, 2018

I have one of those collecting dust in storage (well, the tray loaded version). I didn't find it to be a useful system. But if you want to buy it off of me, where are you located? We're in Ohio.

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#81256

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 18 October, 2018

They visited our factory once bringing the desktop variant with them quite a while ago (~8 years perhaps when they were still called something else). At the time it was an FAI machine first and foremost with some "AOI like" features that perhaps other FAI machines did not have. Of course the product has probably evolved since then but that machine was still baiscally a flatbed scanner, so very much pure 2D. It could read component markings (where they exist), IIRc it had a database of some of them so knew/could know what the weird codes on a SOT23 might mean. It could spot skewed or missing parts and a complete lack of solder. However it wouldn't have much/any chance of spotting a below par solder fillet (which would be the slope referred to previously). Equally it would not spot a QFN/BGA that wasn't flat and might struggle to spot a raised leg.

There are all sorts of 2D, "2.5" and 3D AOI machines achieving what they do by various tricks be it angled cameras, angled lights, laser scanning.. They can cost $30k or 100k it all depends on what you can justify, the errors you think you are trying to catch and the consequences of missing them. If your aim is to catch silly obvious issues caused by running a line made up of some fairly old and crappy machinery the AOIsystems machine is probably excellent.

That I have seen demo'd I quite like this fellow British machine http://www.dcbautomation.com/ (no idea if it is available internationally), it uses different colours of light at angles, how these are reflected allows it to spot poor soldering, something a flatbed cannot do. I think as an introduction to AOI this one ticks a lot of boxes for a lot less cash than the bigger brands.

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#81272

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 20 October, 2018

I'll be interested depending on price. I don't have much of a budget. My purpose would be to catch obvious issues.

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#81273

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 20 October, 2018

My pick and place machines are 10+ years old so I might be in the crappy department. I wasn't looking for a complete fool proof system, I am looking for aoi on a tiny budget that covers majority of scenarios. We will have to be mindful of solder slope. I do have QFNs and my SMT guys think thats the easiest item to place since its a quad.

I am starting to research SPI systems and want to invest more into that possibly.

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#81283

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 23 October, 2018

THE AOI system is good for presence and polarity only

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#81284

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 23 October, 2018

Will it not work for soldering defects (solder bridges, shorts, insufficient solder, solder void) or components defects (lifted lead, misaligned component)?

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#81292

Older AOI Inspection Systems | 24 October, 2018

It will in a limited fashion. It is a scanner and when using it for solder or lead inspection you will probably get many false calls, Operators tend to fall asleep clicking "accept" all the time. Don't get me wrong, we run one of these systems and it works great for polarity, part marking and presence. The obvious statement regarding solder is fix that at the source.

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